The uber-hyped narrative

Comment to the op-ed article Navalny’s brave battle should be ours too in The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021. Polish version: Hiper-rozdmuchana narracja.


Lech S Borkowski comment in The Sunday Times 24 January 2021
Lech S Borkowski, comment in The Sunday Times 24 January 2021

The Times’ articles devoted to protests are not particularly informative. There is really no information beyond a handful of keywords sprinkled throughout the text. One might think that there is new religion in town, Protestology. Protestology is journalists’ junk food. It is extremely superficial. The activists come out to the streets, they protest, and bang! you have got news. Or have you, really? A protest in the UK or US is not the same as a ‘protest’ in Russia or elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

If there is such readiness to protest in Russia or elsewhere in the Communist block, why disciples of the Church of Protestology do not embrace combatting the Communist, totalitarian legacy?

The ruling class in Russia post-1990, like pretty much everywhere else in the Communist block, remained the same as pre-1990. Protests belong to the abc of political technology. The ‘protesters’ are members of the same ruling class. Fake conflicts are bread-and-butter of public life under Communism 2.0.

I have watched media reporting hundreds of protests in another Communist country, in Poland. However, I have never seen in daily life any trace of the allegedly ‘febrile’ atmosphere leading to protests. This applies both to the days before 1990 and after that date.

The uber-hyped protests are an ideal tool to shape the narrative. Given the disciplined Communist social troops, they can organise protest about anything and thus impose practically any arbitrarily chosen public narrative. The method is tried and tested.

Note complete absence from The Times of stories related to Communist genocide.

@LechSBorkowski